The war in Ukraine is going very badly for Vladimir Putin. That’s a major understatement. The Russians are being steadily driven from Ukrainian territory by a combination of the Ukraine army fighting for its homeland, along with NATO and other countries supplying high-tech weapons for use against the Russians.
Those weapons have been devastatingly effective on the battlefield. Determined Ukrainian soldiers firing high-tech weapons have made the difference against an army that most in the West once feared. As it turns out, the real fear is of the madman in the Kremlin who started all this and who has continually hinted that he still has a nuclear arsenal and isn’t afraid to use it.
While no one outside the Kremlin, and this apparently includes most of the citizens of Russia, thought this war was a good idea or necessary in the least, many nations are now voicing that opinion to Russia, even nations that are relatively friendly to the Kremlin. Putin heard from India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who told him openly that today’s era is not an era of war. Putin acknowledged hearing from Xi Jinping, president of China, who voiced concerns about the war.
War, while sometimes being necessary, is not a good idea in any era. War always costs lives, always. And it is clear that Russian troops have carried out many war crimes in the zones they have occupied, leaving behind mass graves filled with Ukraine civilians. Such tyranny has to be opposed, but the war was unnecessary from the beginning. It was an ego move by Putin, a part of his dream of restoring the glory of the old Soviet Union.
Casualties among the combatants have been very high. Modern mechanized warfare with smart weapons creates carnage on the battlefield. Some western intelligence services estimate Russian fatalities at about 50,000. That is very close to the total U.S. loss of life in the entire Vietnam War. Ukraine has suffered fewer fatalities, but they are admitting to nearly 10,000 killed in action.
Peace needs to happen, but I can pretty much guarantee you it won’t happen until Russia vacates Ukraine territory. Were I president of Ukraine, with this kind of momentum on my side, there is no way I would sit down to talk peace with Putin, not until every single Russian soldier is off Ukrainian soil.
Here is where the danger of escalation lies. Putin began a mobilization, essentially a draft, to bolster his flagging war effort, but the Russian people have not taken well to this. The border crossings, airports and any means of egress from Russia have been backed up with people attempting to leave rather than be pressed into service in the unpopular war.
Now the Russian leader has begun press-ganging men into service to go fight the war. If surrenders and defections were bad before, I wonder does he believe they will be better by grabbing random citizens off the streets and forcing them to go fight a war which they oppose and are not even remotely prepared to fight?
Putin’s justification was that he did not wish to have NATO any closer to Russia, but his military campaign has had precisely the opposite effect. Ukraine has applied for fast-track membership and Baltic nations Finland and Sweden are also applying for NATO membership. All of these countermoves paint Putin into a corner and a person as clearly unstable as himself might actually attempt to use a nuclear weapon.
In all probability, if he does use a nuke, it would be a battlefield deployed weapon aimed at decimating a large body of Ukrainian troops rather than a strategic weapon aimed at a political target such as Kyiv, London or some other European city. Even a limited battlefield deployment will result in a major escalation because no Western power will tolerate such an action by Putin. There will be a swift and deadly response.
The world is linked together with many economic and social ties between nations that did not exist in past centuries. For a leader such as Putin to start a completely unjustified war shakes the social and economic fabric of the entire non-communist world. Nations today are far less willing to turn a blind eye to regional aggression such as this because it can so easily escalate to a worldwide catastrophe.
That brings us to the only solution other than Putin simply deciding to back down from the war and saying he is sorry. The unrest in Russia could reach a level that would cause some group within the country to stage a coup and remove him. If the world really thinks he might use nukes, might a nation take action and attempt to assassinate him? I would think all options could be on the table. After all, what price is the world willing to pay to avoid a nuclear war?
Deposing Putin would very likely bring the Ukraine war to a screeching halt. The question is, who would take such an action? The best answer would be an internal revolt that removed him. The bottom line is for peace to actually have a real chance, Putin has to go.
Gary Cosby Jr. is the photo editor of The Tuscaloosa News. Readers can email him at gary.cosby@tuscaloosanews.com.
This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: For peace to prevail Vladimir Putin must go | GARY COSBY JR.
